This invention relates to a bicycle from which a rider, rather than sitting on a seat, is suspended from a boom extending from the frame of the bicycle.
Ever since the invention of the first two-wheeled bicycle in the fifteenth century C.E., bicycles have had a seat for the rider. While this is an obvious method of support, providing easy mounting and dismounting, it has two major drawbacks: riders suffer from the concentrated application of pressure on their crotch and buttocks areas, which can lead to serious health problems, and while pedaling with all body weight supported by the pedals, kinetic energy is lost due to unconstrained vertical motion of the rider's body.
All existing and past bicycle designs support the rider from the underside of his body, whether standing on the pedals or sitting on the seat. Seats have been provided on various parts of the bicycle frame, including the top of the center post, on the frame's top crossbar between the front and rear wheels and on the frame's bottom crossbar. This is the case with many recumbent bicycle designs. Bicycles without any seat have depended on the rider standing on pedals or a foot bar or—in the case of the earliest wooden bicycles lacking any propulsion system—on the top frame's crossbar itself, like straddling a fence. Although standing on one's feet or sitting in or on a seat is natural to human anatomy, it is not the most anatomically beneficial or energy-efficient way to integrate a person with a human-powered two-wheeled machine.
In the most common configuration of modern bicycles, the seat is mounted atop the center post of the frame. While coasting, virtually the entire weight of the rider is supported by less than 12 square inches of seat area. Consequently, an average weight male rider experiences over 17 pounds per square inch of pressure concentrated on the crotch region. On small racing-style seats, the pressure can be doubled. Several hours of pressure in this range can cause discomfort and pain. An all-day ride can result in permanent nerve damage in this area of the body. In addition, the nose of the seat can cause inner thigh chafing.
Recumbent bicycles overcome the “pressure point” problem of a small center post mounted seat by having a seat with a larger surface area that better supports the buttocks. These seats do not have noses, so inner thigh chafing is not a problem. However, the forward edge of the recumbent bicycle seat can create a pressure ridge across the underside of the thigh. This line of pressure is exacerbated by the up and down motion of the upper leg while pedaling.
From an energy efficiency perspective, recumbent bicycles offer the advantage of little loss of energy for lower body support. In contrast, conventional bicycles require a significant portion of the rider's energy simply to oppose gravity while pedaling. Also, in sprint mode, when the rider's weight is fully on the pedals, the pedaling motion itself causes the rider's body to oscillate vertically. This vertical motion contributes nothing to the forward momentum of the bicycle. It represents wasted energy.
It has been calculated that a 170-lb rider, during a 3-minute intense uphill ride with 75% of their body weight applied to the pedals would produce over 2700 joules just by lifting their body a half inch on each stroke. That is the wasted work this invention aims to capture, by restraining vertical motion.